


Controlled Burn

by nabokoves



Series: I Owe You Everything [1]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 16:05:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5055076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nabokoves/pseuds/nabokoves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you have to tear a relationship apart in order to make it change. Mulder breaks down during a fight with Scully, and the nature of their relationship is called into question. Part 1 of a series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Controlled Burn

**Author's Note:**

> Light spoilers for s4 arc. Set in the middle of s5. I'll let everyone know right now that my Mulder/Scully, while suitably angsty, never descend past s5/6 because I enjoy having them happy and together, thank you very much. Part one of a series which catalogs a (painfully slow) progression from Platonic Coworkers to Married FBI Agents. (I might do some mild editing to this fic at a later date) Criticism would be fantastic, btw.

**KENNEBUNCK, MAINE**

**DECEMBER 18, 1975**

 

_A young Scully watches the men from the door of the cabin, her freckled forehead pressed against the door frame. Despite the relative isolation of the forest, the sky is devoid of stars. Her siblings are shouting in the day room behind her, bickering over a lost boot. The rangers move as blurry figures along the forest’s horizon, preparing the area for burning. Scully turns to her father, sitting on the porch beside her._

_“I don’t understand,” she says, tugging at her nightgown. “I thought the rangers are supposed to protect the forest- not set it on fire.” Her father chuckles and lights a cigar._

_“This forest is dying, Starbuck. When they burn it, the ash will be nutrients for a new one- a better one.” Scully nods, even though she doesn’t understand._

_In the distance, a dim flame appears, quickly growing bright as it spreads throughout the woods. Thick smoke twists from the tops of the trees, barely visible against the empty sky._

_“Dana! Close that door before the whole kitchen smells of smoke!” Scully moves from the doorframe, allowing herself one last look at the destruction. Across the field, the shadow of a ranger stretches, its silhouette waxing and waning as the flames touch, devour, and fade._

  
  


**BAYFIELD, WISCONSIN**

**SEPTEMBER 25, 1998**

 

For Scully, the only good part about rural cases was the free breakfast. The Bureau always sprung for the cheapest hotel they could find. In cities, this meant that Scully and her partner were stuck in sleezy motel rooms (often stinking of sweat and other undesirable things). In small towns, though, the Bureau had to settle for the only hotels available- usually cute little Bed n Breakfasts owned by happy retirees. This landed Scully and Mulder in the breakfast hall of a three-story home in Bayfield, nearly twenty miles from the interstate. A soft blanket of snow covered the windowsills, and the hall was empty except for the gangly teenage boy in charge of managing the buffet.

“Man, I’m loving the free food,” Mulder crammed half a waffle into his mouth, practically swallowing the thing whole.

“I can tell,” Scully laughed. She pushed a pile of scrambled eggs around her plate.

“Are you gonna eat those?” Mulder asked, gesturing with his fork.

“Just because I don’t inhale my food, doesn’t mean I’m not going to eat it.” Mulder shrugged and got up for the buffet again. Scully sighed and stared at her plate, disassembled yet uneaten. In truth, she wasn’t in the mood for breakfast. They’d been here for nearly a week, even though the case wrapped up two days in. The snowfall had been unreal, even for a Wisconsin December. The roads wouldn’t be safe to drive on until tomorrow morning, at best. It didn’t help that she’d been procrastinating on a crucial conversation with her partner.

At first, she justified her silence with the case. There was no use distracting her partner from his job- while Mulder was good at what he did, he was not good at keeping his attention from wandering. Once the case resolved, Scully promised herself she’d tell him when they got back to D.C. Now, days into their snow-enforced exile, the deadline was too close to justify waiting. She was going to have to bear the full brunt of Mulder’s disappointment- no buffers.

Mulder returned to the table with powdered donuts. The entire plate was covered in them, some of them threatening to fall over the sides.

“Mulder, you cannot-”

“Free buffet, Scully! I’ll never have a chance like this again!” Mulder shot her a shit-eating grin and began wolfing down donuts.

“It’s free within _reason_.” Mulder, with his cheeks puffed out from donut, pointed at the sign. _Free Breakfast Buffet_ , it read. He raised his eyebrows and swallowed hard.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t see that on the sign. Besides, our waiter doesn’t seem to mind.” Scully looked over at the teenage boy who poured their water. He sat in a chair at the other end of the hall, wearing his thumbs out on a Gameboy.

“I doubt he would mind if you took the entire buffet and dumped it onto the carpet.”

“Then he would have to clean up the mess.” Mulder polished off his doughnuts in record time, save for one which he proceeded to shove in Scully’s face.

“Cut it out,” Scully batted his hand away, forcing a friendly giggle. This sort of play was normal between them- and things had to remain normal between them.

“C’mon, open up for the airplane.” Mulder began imitating the sounds of a plane, rather poorly. Despite her best efforts, Scully felt her eyes well up in tears. For some reason, his games filled her with guilt- they felt too intimate. Her heart weighed heavy, as if she were some sort of traitor.

“Whoa- Scully?” Mulder dropped the doughnut and reached to touch her face, perhaps to wipe her tears. It was too much. She forced her chair away from the table.

“I took a job in Washington- all of October.” Mulder paused, then chuckled.

“Is that why you've been off this morning? What, were you worried you sprung it on me? I mean, Halloween on the job won’t be too fun, but I can be packed and rea-”

“ _I_ took a job. Alone.” Mulder’s expression feel until he reminded her of a dead dog. Every part of his body slumped, as if his life had been severed from him. She met his eyes for a second, fumbling for something more to say- an apology, an explanation. Instead, she pushed her chair in.

“I’ll be back the second of November.” She turned away and walked to the staircase, waiting for him to follow. He never did. Scully climbed the staircase, each step rattling in her heart. The door to their room was ajar. The room was still a mess, covered in small evidences of their week long stay. She sat on the bed and stared at the couch, currently falling apart in a mess of blankets and cushions. Mulder always slept on the couch when they stayed in one-bed rooms. Always. For all his innuendos and sly remarks, he never even sat beside her in bed. He wanted her to feel comfortable.

They’d rarely worked apart from each other, and never by choice. Without Scully, Mulder’s investigation methods bordered on pathological self-destruction. Without Mulder- Scully wasn’t sure. She should have asked his permission- she shouldn’t have taken the job- she hated herself for wanting to sabotage this for the sake of a friend. Not even a friend- a coworker. But it felt demeaning to use that term- coworker, colleague, even friend. Mulder was not Scully’s friend. Mulder was something more- something warmer and less detached.

Mulder entered the room quietly, slinking past the half-open door and making a beeline for his suitcase. Scully hastened to plead her case.

“Skinner promised to arrange work for you in my absence. I’m not going to leave you without-” Mulder shook his head to silence her, throwing his suitcase onto the bed.

“Are you packing? You aren’t planning on driving out of her alone?” Mulder grunted and began tossing clothes into the suitcase.

“The roads are covered in ice, Mulder! You won’t be able to get out of the parking lot.” Mulder pretended not to hear her. Scully gave a frustrated groan and reached for his suitcase, hoping to toss it off the bed and talk sense into her partner.

“Mulder, I understand you’re upset-”

“No,” Mulder slammed his suitcase shut. It barely made a sound, but to Scully, it seemed like gunshots. “No, I’m not upset. I’m pissed. I’m fucking pissed, okay?"

“Mulder-” Scully moved to unzip his suitcase, but he knocked it to the ground before she could reach. The contents spilled over the floor.

" _They_  take everything from me. They took my sister, my parents, my job- hell, they took you and then they only gave you back because it suited them. Everything I have, I have because they’ve given me permission. Now, they seem to have revoked it." 

"Who the hell is  _they?_ Nobody is taking me anywhere- Director Skinner called and told me they needed somebody to come and investigate some suicides in Seattle. It's autopsy work- not your territory." 

"I'm sure that's what they told you." Mulder's tone dripped in a bitterness Scully could only begin to understand. 

"Damnit- why does everything have to be a conspiracy?" 

"Because it _is._ At least- it is when you deal with my superiors.These X-Files, this calculated rebellion, it’s all a game. I find the things they want me to find. I reveal the things they want me to reveal.”

"And you think they're trying to exact some sort of revenge on you by  _giving me a job_?" 

"They know how much you mean to me." Scully almost stopped. She felt she was starting to hit at something deeper than just a spat between coworkers. 

"So they're going to punish you for some unknown crime by sending me to Washington for a few weeks." 

“Do you think the things you hear about me are just bureau gossip? 'Spooky Mulder never had any friends before his pretty partner came around; Spooky Mulder spends his Friday nights getting wasted and watching bad porn on VHS; Spooky Mulder shouldn’t be a real FBI agent because he almost failed his psych eval'- Don’t think they shove me in the basement because they’re afraid of me, Scully. I shove myself in the damn basement, because the more I have, the more they can take.”

“I can’t be taken, Mulder! For Christ’s sake, I'm not moving! They told me they didn't want you to come along because you wouldn't be able to help, and besides, autopsies have always made you uncomfortable-”

“Is that what they told you? That they wanted to spare me a bit of gore? Look- go to Seattle. I’m happy for you. Maybe you’ll impress the right people or solve the right case and they’ll relieve you of your babysitting duty.”

“Babysitting duty? Glad to know how highly you view my work!” Scully felt her face growing hot, despite her desperate attempts to stay rational. 

“You know damn well that isn’t what I meant.”

“You think I’m just trying to get out of here? Spend a few years working on the FBI’s most challenging cases until I can float out and finally land myself a nice, fulfilling _desk job_?”

“They only put you with me to discredit my work. If everything had gone according to plan, you would have been off the X Files and upstairs within a year. You’re a fantastic agent- you should never have been placed with me.” Scully softened at Mulder’s last statement. He did his best to hide it, but his voice had begun to crack from fighting tears. Scully stepped over the wreckage of his discarded suitcase and sat down on the bed.

“I’m not working with you because of the Bureau. I’m working with you because I _want to_. I became an agent because I wanted to help people. One of the first things I learned on the X-Files is that we- the FBI- don’t always do that. The people we work for hurt people, Mulder, don’t think I don’t know that. I don’t want to dedicate my life to ruining the lives of others.” Mulder looked down, and then sat beside Scully, not allowing himself to make eye contact.

“I know that they’ll try and take you from me some day. I knew from the moment you walked into my office. Do you know the first thing I thought when you entered? 'Who’s this little spy?' I made up my mind to hate you, you know. I wanted to make your life hell, because I wanted to make their life hell. You were just another way for them to give and take, give and take- every time a little less give, a little more take.” Without thinking, Mulder turned and rested his head on Scully’s shoulder. He stiffened when he realized the unwitting intimacy of his act, but Scully began to run her fingers through his hair, allowing him to settle into her.

“I’m sorry.” It was the only thing she could say.

“We started working together and I stopped hating you but I didn’t let myself start _liking_ you. I needed you to be the enemy. Every case, every damn case, I promised I wouldn’t like you. Then, I don’t know when, I skipped liking you. One day I hated you and then, somehow, I loved you. I loved Mom, and Dad, and Samantha- and I love you. Fuck, I’m sorry.” Mulder started to cry, his head still buried in Scully’s shoulder. His sobs were ragged and uncontrolled. Scully could feel them in her own chest, beating against her ribcage. Slowly, Mulder’s hand reached over to Scully’s, intertwining his fingers with hers.

“This-" He squeezed her hand, "is the only thing I’ve ever let myself have.”

They sat together for a long time. Mulder’s sobs dissipated gradually until there was only the sound of his breathing against Scully’s neck. Eventually, they would have to deal with Scully’s departure. Eventually, they would have to discuss Mulder’s hasty confession of love, perhaps already forgotten in the midst of his tears. Eventually, they would have to become, no longer safe to just be. _But not today_ , Scully thought, turning her head to stare at the wall behind them.  _Not today._

Their shadows melded together in the places where they touched, unable to decide where one began and the other ended.

 

 

 


End file.
